When I entered the breakfast-room they were all at table. Jettè looked very pale, but she allowed that her headache was better, though she said she still felt far from well. Hannè and her father teased me unmercifully about the visitors of the day before, who had put me so much out of humour, and about my predictions of a thunderstorm wherewith I endeavoured to drive them away. 'But you are quite an ignoramus in regard to the weather, cousin; that I perceived,' said Hannè, 'I shall present you with a barometer on your birthday, so that you may not make such mistakes again as that of yesterday evening. Which is the important day?'
'It is quite old-fashioned to keep birthdays, Hannè; that custom has been long since exploded,' said I, 'and therefore I am not going to tell you.'
'But we are very old-fashioned here, and you will be expected to do as we do in respect to keeping birthdays. First, let me refresh your memory. When is my birthday?'
'On the 12th of November you will be seventeen years of age.'
'Right. And Jettè's? How old will she be her next birthday?'
It was a trying examination, but it was well deserved; why had I not taken myself off the night before, when I could so well have made my escape?
'Come, begin; tell us Jettè's birthday, and my father's, and my mother's? Let us have them all at once. Now we shall see whether you are skilled in your almanac.'
'Are you seriously bent on this examination? Do you fancy I have forgotten one of them?' I asked, in an offended tone. 'I will not answer such questions.'
This was one way of escaping. When do people most easily take offence? Answer: When they are in the wrong.
'I see how it is,' said Hannè; 'as it annoys you to be asked if you are betrothed, it probably annoys you to be expected to remember the birthday of her to whom you are engaged. Only think,' she added, addressing the rest of the party, 'he does not wear his betrothal-ring, because he does not like answering any question to which his having it on his finger might give rise. As if it were a question of conscience.'